Claudia Hart Mortifications

Mortifications are a series of heavy plastic figurines output from a Rapid Prototype machine. Individual 3D computer models are produced via a process normal to industrial manufacturing.

In the Mortifications, a realistic model of a nude is digitally “mutilated” and subjected to irregular and apparently organic deformations. By creating forms that evoke decay out of non-biodegradable ABS plastic, using a process intended to produce prototypes for mass production, the Mortifications propose a digital Baroque. Related to the intentions of the historical Baroque, the emotionally expressive, personal style of this imagery is intended to breathe irregularity and life into a conformist techno/consumer culture.

Claudia Hart graduated from New York University with a BA cum laude in art history in 1978, and then studied architecture at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture. She then practiced as an art and architecture critic. In 1985-86, she was Associate Editor of ID (then Industrial Design Magazine) where, along with Senior Editor Steven Skov Holt, she redeveloped it into its present form,...